A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

I quickly stripped my creations for parts, laying all the different pieces I’d be needing out separately. The Arachnomicon bits were left separate, since I’d need to refashion that much later. For now, I started manipulating the bones of the Nailwolves.

My other creations had taught me that it was best to make a rough bone structure and only then coat it in muscle, like I was giving the skeleton a flesh mech. Following that same principle here, I fused the bones together but tried to keep most of their rough shape. I had to split them up in a few places to make sure that everything would fit together right. My hopes were that this creation would be as magically efficient as possible, which meant that I’d need to make it as anatomically correct as possible.

Wolf bones slowly took a more human form, and eventually I had a 7 foot tall werewolf skeleton to work with. I was slotting cartilage between the joints when an image suddenly popped into my head.

A skinned corpse sat on a table in front of me, half its body carved open to reveal its skeleton. The other half was staring into the sky with a fearful expression forever locked onto its face. That face, more than anything, revealed the truth: it wasn’t a human. Not even close.

Lycaos, I heard something whisper. It seemed that werewolves– or, perhaps, wolfmen?– already existed in this world.

The vision flickered out, and I immediately spotted some now-obvious flaws in my design. I fixed them up, and then did my best to improve the design. First of all, my creation wasn’t going to have organs, so some bone density could be shifted around. For a mortal, losing a leg was a big deal, but not instantly fatal. Getting stabbed in the heart was. Because of that, we’d evolved to have stronger ribs than would be needed for a creature without that vulnerability. It was preferable that this boss broke a rib, rather than a leg.

After that, there were a whole bunch of bones that I could just get rid of. The Lycaos had more than a human did, certainly, but the wolf bodies had over three hundred bones. Some of them could be reshaped or adjusted into other needed structures, but most of them ended up being melded into the rest of the body, further strengthening it. Cartilage and ligaments were added, and the skeletal system was complete.

Next came the muscles. I’d gotten a pretty good look at how the ones on the Lycaos had been shaped, so I only needed to make a few minor adjustments to account for the lack of internal organs in this creation.

Stretching skin and "fur” onto the new boss monster wasn’t too difficult, but I had to make some adjustments to make sure that the claws that made up the fur all went in the right direction. I also chose to lengthen and add density to many of those claws, making them into a decent imitation of scale mail.

Eventually, a more dungeon-appropriate version of the Lycaos was formed, and I inspected it for a moment, knowing that something was missing. Oh wait, eyes, duh. I took a set of Nailwolf eyes, increasing their size and altering their pigmentation just a bit to make them seem more human. Well, making the sclera red probably didn’t help with that, but whatever. They were then slotted into this new boss monster… who I had yet to name. I’ll work on that later.

Since he would be a humanoid, it felt weird leaving him unclothed, so I fashioned a cloak out of Twinscale hide, manipulated to a black coloration. Once I’d gotten that finished and covered him with it, he was starting to look like Death. Straight up.

I decided that he needed a staff. My plan was to make him into a summoner/caster, hence the Arachnomicon, and it just felt right. I didn’t have any wood, though, so I had to make do with some well-shaped and colored bone.

The main body was, for the most part, complete. Now I just needed to equip him with magic and make a Wisp to actually be him.

I reopened the Gate to Kelemnion, diving into it and setting off as soon as my boney feet touched the floor. Before I knew it, I was looking at a huge, glowing book. Images flashed into my head, each having one thing in common: death and chaos. My hand touched the book, and a new inscription appeared in my mind. Infliction.

I spent a brief moment refreshing my mind with my Repository, then took off once again. With Infliction, Defense, and Ordinance, I felt that I had enough versatility in terms of inscriptions. Now I just needed to come up with some unique intents.

Intent was a strange thing. You could name it, and call it something, but it wasn’t really accurate. What Conceptium really did was passively shape energy into a predetermined configuration. The longer it was in existence without being used, the less accurate it would become, and the more it would forget. It would eventually be reduced down into a basic concept, like the Death that I’d stored away.

Calling the Conceptium I’d gathered earlier “Barrier” intent was like pointing at burgundy and calling it red. Was it technically correct? Sure, but it wasn’t exact. Over time, though, some of its “color” would bleed out, leaving me with a more abstract Barrier intent, one with a more vague meaning.

Using less specific and definite Conceptium would allow for more variance. The Defense inscription I’d created before would always create a wall of force, but if I used a more aged Barrier intent, then it would be able to adapt more to different situations. That also meant that it would lose an amount of predictability, though.

In some situations, it would be worth it, and in others it wouldn’t. For the more passive effects, I’d probably want them to be more flexible, but talismans would often need more exact directions. Of course, it was possible to make a vague intent without letting the power drain from it, but sometimes it was better to start with something specific and then let it “mature.”

This method would allow me to more carefully control how exact the effects of your inscription could be. If you took an Infliction talisman and filled it with the intent to shoot a projectile, it would do that and only that. If you let it age a bit, though, it might develop some other effects, allowing the inscription to affect it more. For example, the aforementioned projectile might lose some efficiency, but become homing, or leave behind a DoT effect.

I kinda wanted to give my new boss access to multiple elements, but I decided against it for now. I was sure that there was a method, but I felt that I should stick to using Forbodum for now, since I’d just gotten access to it and wanted to increase my familiarity with it.

With that in mind, I exited the plane of knowledge and returned to my tower.

Slowly, painstakingly, I started thinking up designs for spells. Bolts of deathly energy, phantom armor, waves of chilling force… the works. For these first ones, I made sure to think up everything that I wanted the inscriptions to do, the bolts of death rotting flesh, the phantom armor only stopping things that moved too quickly, and the force settling into the bones of afflicted creatures.

For the next ones, though, I decided to be a bit more vague, thinking only in vague, general ideas. This was much easier to do, since the formed Conceptium was far less complex than one that was basically an entire spell in and of itself.

That actually got me thinking about what the whole System thing really was. Was it just an interpretation of my soul, or was there something more behind it? When I used my Skills and Boons, I didn’t struggle nearly as much at forming the intent. Maybe it was getting pulled from somewhere else, or processed somehow?

I didn’t know, which was a bit frustrating, but it was another topic to explore when I next visited Kelemnion.

Once I’d gathered a large enough variety of Conceptium to make a few of each inscription I’d come up with, I started slowly carving and pushing my energy into the talisman pages.

Boring. Tedious. Dull. Monotonous. Repetitive. Soulless.

Eventually, I gave up. Sure, I was a lich, but constant strenuous mental activity could get tiresome, especially if it’s just the same thing over and over again.

Instead, I animated some smaller copies of the boss I was working on– calling them Scholars, just for fun– designed some energy-conductive spikes, and had them work on it instead. I shoved Wisps into the quills to let the energy and Conceptium come directly from me.

It was more draining this way, but also a lot less boring, which was a plus in my books.

I turned my attention back to the boss himself. He was a giant wolfman wizard with a magic book and a black cloak. What was he missing?

Nothing?

Great, time to wake this dude up.

Another Wisp was formed, and this time I took the time and formed a consciousness for it. I had to cancel out all of the other large drains on my energy, specifically the new Scholars, but this time I had more power to throw at the problem that was giving life to a nascent mind. It still took a while, but I didn’t pass out, so that was a plus.

I decided to hand over all of my memories about science, math, history, mythology and most of my knowledge about energy, including the stuff from back on Earth. Right now, I had to form all of the Conceptium, but I wanted this guy to do it himself later on, which meant that it would be optimal for him to understand how the world worked, as well as know the scientific method.

While I didn’t pass out or get thrown into my Repository, my creation was sleepy, so I wasn’t able to see how it had gone. Instead, I looked back over my Scholars and restarted the flow of energy between myself and the quill spikes.

Then it was just a waiting game.

Actually, screw that.

I started carving out a huge basement beneath my tower, compressing all of the spare matter into pillars and up against the ceiling, making everything as stable as I could. Then I started spawning Scholars.

My goal was for this basement to be where all of the automation required for making my dungeon spire function took place. Wisps were formed with all sorts of knowledge, from how to terraform, to spreading my influence, to making my other creations. I had to spend some time with those last ones to make sure that they got everything that was required for doing so, since my mob list had gotten pretty long and some of them needed actual intelligence to work well.

After that, I took another look at the surrounding area to find something to do, examining every nook and cranny.

Then I found something, and remembered. I still had that Cadavrrhizae’s seed, didn’t I? My Forbodum could probably usurp control over its current affinities…

Just as I was about to mess around with the seed, my attention was dragged back to my new boss as it woke up gasping for air– air that it didn’t particularly need. I had shoved the Wisp into the body it was to possess before I’d gotten distracted, but it was still an undead. Maybe that was just my old memories influencing it?

“Hello there,” I projected to it through my skull.

The wolfman-zombie-boss shook for a moment, then looked at me with confusion. “Creator?” Its voice was rough, like someone with a sore throat.

“Yeah. You know what your job is, right?” The boss just nodded in reply, so I continued, “I haven’t been able to think of a name for you yet. What do you think?” With Uban, I’d just kinda fiddled around with stuff, but I wanted to give this guy a choice, since he had more of my knowledge and culture than the land dragon had.

He took a moment to consider, then nodded to himself and responded, “Fenrir, sire. I believe that name will suit me well.”

“The one from Nordic mythology?” I considered it, then gave him a boney thumbs-up in approval. “I like it. Do you want to go supervise the Scholars or would you prefer to get comfy in your new domain?”

“I’d prefer to go tame the Nails, if you don’t mind.” His voice grew slightly more violent, and I gave him a strange look.

“You know I can just tell them to do what you want, right?”

He just shrugged. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t do that, sire. I would like to prove my superiority over them.”

I frowned. “Will they even fight you? I’ve never seen my creatures fight one another.”

“If I challenge them openly, their residual wolf instincts should take over. When left on their own, they will follow those instincts, and fight for the position of alpha. I intend to win that battle. Currently, you’ve instilled cooperation into the packs, but I have not been included in that.” Fenrir smiled viciously. “I will prove myself and win their loyalty, master.”

I wagged a finger at him. “You don’t have your book yet, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t give you any magic.”

“Just because you intended for me to be a mage does not mean I am weak in other areas. Furthermore…” He drew a finger through the air, and a black line formed in the air. Slowly, it shaped itself into a rune. Specifically, Ordinance.

Fenrir moved slowly and methodically, but I was in awe. I hadn’t even tried to form inscriptions in the air yet, and he was just… doing it?? I didn’t interrupt, though, since he wasn’t done quite yet.

The Ordinance inscription seemed to solidify, then get a bit… wet? He pressed his palm into it, and it sunk into his fur like a tattoo.

“How did you do that?” I finally asked, shocked that he’d managed to teach me something immediately after being born. Seriously, he was at most a half hour old and he was already ahead of me in crafting inscriptions.

Fenrir just shrugged. “You taught me all I know, master. Perhaps you simply had yet to consider it from this angle? After all, you are far more spread out than I, whereas this is my purpose. You created me expressly for this, so all of my knowledge has built up this aspect of myself exclusively. You knew that magical energy could take on solid and liquid form. You also know how to alter and manipulate dead flesh, and how inscriptions work. You could have done this if you’d spent enough time on it, I’m certain.”

I frowned, then waved open a portal to the sixteenth floor. “Have fun, I guess?”

He leapt through the rift and nodded.

I spied for a moment with a sensor– my old Omnipresence ability. Sure enough, with a few growls and a bit of teeth-gnashing, the biggest of the Nailwolves were fighting with Fenrir.

I settled in to watch the proceedings, wishing I could get– or even eat– some popcorn.